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Use of reinforced soil foundation (RSF) to support shallow foundation : summary report, November 2008.

File Language:
English


Details

  • Creators:
  • Corporate Creators:
    Louisiana Transportation Research Center
  • Corporate Contributors:
    United States. Federal Highway Administration
  • Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Publication/ Report Number:
    FHWA/LA.08/424
  • Resource Type:
    Tech Report
  • Geographical Coverage:
    Louisiana
  • Edition:
    Summary report; Nov. 2008.
  • Corporate Publisher:
    Louisiana Transportation Research Center
  • Abstract:
    This research study investigates the potential benefits of using reinforced soil foundations to improve the bearing

    capacity and reduce the settlement of shallow foundations on soils. To implement this objective, a total of 117

    tests, including 38 laboratory model tests on silty clay embankment soil, 51 laboratory model tests on sand, 22

    laboratory model tests on Kentucky crushed limestone, and 6 large-scale field tests on silty clay embankment soil

    were performed at the Louisiana Transportation Research Center to study the behavior of reinforced soil

    foundations. The influences of the different variables and parameters contributing to the improved performance of

    reinforced soil foundation were examined in these tests. In addition, an instrumentation program with pressure

    cells and strain gauges was designed to investigate the stress distribution in soil mass with and without

    reinforcement and the strain distribution along the reinforcement. The test results showed that the inclusion of

    reinforcement can significantly improve the soil’s bearing capacity and reduce the footing settlement. The

    geogrids with higher tensile modulus performed better than geogrids with lower tensile modulus. The strain

    developed along the reinforcement is directly related to the settlement, and, therefore, higher tension would be

    developed for geogrid with higher modulus under the same footing settlement. The test results also showed that

    the inclusion of reinforcement will redistribute the applied load to a wider area, thus minimizing stress

    concentration and achieving a more uniform stress distribution. The redistribution of stresses below the reinforced

    zone will result in reducing the consolidation settlement of the underlying weak, clayey, soil which is directly

    related to the induced stress. Insignificant strain measured in the geogrid beyond its effective length of 4.0 ~ 6.0B

    indicated that the geogrid beyond this length provides a negligible extra reinforcement effect.

  • Format:
    PDF
  • Funding:
    04-2GT
  • Collection(s):
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha256:d0c4fae40140f29421b2395dcc7cc8569e6414cdb0dceac4770b93995d6b5145
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 1013.07 KB ]
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